Prior to take-off, John and I found ourselves sitting at a Starbucks in Glasgow Airport – the very one in fact that we’d stopped at before flying to Paris in 2007. It then occurred to us that – discounting his visits to Japan – we hadn’t been on a proper holiday together in that entire time. To say that this holiday was overdue is something of an understatement.

The flight itself was a little protracted on account of the fact that we had to take a detour via Greenland and Canada due to high levels of ozone. Whether or not this has anything to do with my recent discovery that pilots are paid by the hour is anyone’s best guess.

Thankfully I was able to amuse myself with stunning views of Newfoundland, and instagramming stalker shots of the hot guy behind me on the plane…which is just as well really since my actual in-flight entertainment consisted of this. Ah yes, I can definitely see why Cate Blanchett won the Oscar.

On arrival in Newark, we had to take the AirTrain to one of the connecting terminals. Along the way we met a woman from Florida who informed us – with no small amount of consternation – that, “There are no fat people in New York!”

It’s actually sort of true, but otherwise the city had no shortage of Americana.

We stayed at the Pod 39 Hotel, which – as the name suggests – was on East 39th Street.

By extension, this also meant that it was right next door to the Chrysler Building and Grand Central.

Nerd fact: I’ve wanted to visit the Chrysler Building ever since I played Parasite Eve in 1998.

If you adjust your cataracts a little, they look exactly alike.

Next up (and just across the road): Grand Central Terminal!

We were very quickly over its majesty on account of this being our closest subway station and, by extension, a minimum-of-twice-daily port of call.

Grand Central’s Vanderbilt Hall was hosting a photo exhibition for the Tohoku earthquake, and an awareness campaign for colorectal cancer. Either one of those was hopefully cause for the person who added Ke$ha’s Die Young to the playlist to be fired.

Bates Motel, The Face and RuPaul’s Drag Race were all premiering that week and – not gonna lie – a massive part of me wanted to stay in the hotel and watch them. For the record, I resisted.

Also our hotel didn’t have Logo.

Wilfred was with me in spirit.

Walk.

Times Square!

And reunion time with Steph! Given that she’s been back to Scotland threetimes since our St Andrews days, it was probably our turn to cross the pond.

…just not enough to stop me from eye-fucking John’s for the rest of the meal.

After dinner, Steph gave us a tour of her apartment(/s). It soon became apparent that John was dying of jet lag, however, and – having been up for almost 24 hours by this point – we decided an early night might not be the worst idea.